1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to object location devices such as those in which an individual presses a button on a transmitter or creates a noise in which a receiver located in the object to be found responds with an alarm signal. The individual can create such a noise via clapping or voice or they can use a transmitter apparatus to emit a signal which can be acoustic, RF, or light by which the receiver is signaled.
2. Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,493,618, “Method and apparatus for activating switches in response to different acoustic signals” by Stevens et. al, is a device popularly known as “The Clapper”. In this device an acoustic signal (the “clap”) is sent by the user to a suitably configured listening circuit which is configured to turn on a wall switch based AC circuit relay. This enables the user to turn or off a AC load, such as lamp without going near the controlled device. While this permits the use the ability to control the device with a clapping motion it does not help find where the receiver circuit is nor can it be used to find battery operated devices.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,188,986, “Voice activated switch method and apparatus” by Matulich et.al. teaches that we can use the human voice to turn on or off AC appliances. However this limits the use to control of appliances and does not provide inherent location finding ability of the receiver circuit.
The next several patents depict circuits which can be used for object location finding, including finding lost remote controls and the like but they don't provide the utility of the present invention in a few key ways. The present invention embeds the receiver circuitry with the battery so that it can be moved from device to device. The present invention also allows simple pairing to create multiple classes of device under user control such that the user can create classes of devices to be found rather then being limited to factory configurations.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,674,364 “Object finder” Holbrook et. al shows how to use RF to cause device to make a beep or flash a light to make it findable. However this is tied to embedding the receiver in a given device rather than the flexibility afforded by the present invention's use of a combined battery-receiver and it does not have the pairing capability of some embodiments of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,101,873 “Device to locate commonly misplaced objects” by Anderson, uses RF to find objects which emit a beep and includes different classes of objects. However, like U.S. Pat. No. 6,674,364 it offers neither the flexibility of the combined battery receiver or the end user class pairing creation capability.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,788,199 “Article locator system” by Crabtree et al., uses a feedback system to find the distance from the article to the transmitting device. This relies on special circuits in the transmitter and article to be located to cooperate in calculating the distance. In addition it does not offer the flexibility of the present invention in the battery tie in so it is limited to devices (remote controls and the like) which implement such a system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,476,469 “Means for assisting in locating an object” by Lander—includes means for finding an object using a feedback mechanism but does not integrate the apparatus in to a battery though it is mentioned that the receiver must be powered by a small battery.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,945,918 “Apparatus and method for locating a remote control unit” by McGonigal et al—builds a transmitter in the TV to find a remote control. This ties implementation of the transmitter device to a television or similar device and in addition does not include multi object class based pairing.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,686,891 “System for locating an object” by Sacca et al, shows a transmitter in a device (VCR CD player or the like) and receiver in the remote control along with a long duty cycle. This shows how power consumption in the receiver circuit can be reduced however it does not include the flexibility of quickly changing devices which have the finding capability nor does it provide for multiclass pairing capability.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,642,095 “Alarm for a card shaped object” by Cook et al—shows a tracking system for card shaped objects but doesn't include the battery tie in or the multiclass capability.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,859,585 “Pacifier locating system” by Fleming—shows a system for tracking pacifiers where the electronics are in the bulb of the pacifier. This locks uses of this invention to baby pacifiers and does not provide for multiclass capability.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,891,471 “Expandable Object Tracking System” Yuen et al—provides for object tracking rather than object finding and it is limited to radio frequency (RF) based techniques.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,759,958 “Method and apparatus for locating an object” by Hall—Uses light to sense transmitter and then activate an alarm. In addition to not possessing the flexibility of the present invention it also is highly limited to those situations in which light can be transmitted (either directly or via reflections) from the transmitter to the receiver. Often lost objects can be placed in places where little to no light is available such as in the crevice in a couch.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/211,934 “Rechargeable Battery Assembly” by Daniel et al. shows a novel tie in of the USB computer interface system as the charging plug to a battery cell where the charge regulation circuitry is embedded in the battery. However while this gives the battery the ability to negotiate with the computer to charge, it does not provide the battery with the intelligence to be found or located as is shown in the present invention.
This application claims priority to U.S. provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/910,636, which was filed on Apr. 6, 2007. This application is incorporated entirely by reference.
The present invention provides several advantages over existing art. By integrating the object finding circuits in to a battery this allows consumers to move the findable batteries from device to device. This gives the user control over which devices to enable the finding functionality. For parents with small children this allows commonly lost toys to become findable and to enable new applications such as making sure no toy is left behind when visiting a friend or relatives house. Also for some devices such as flashlights, it can become convenient to find them in the dark, such as in a power outage, and this gives consumers the ability to put the object location technology in to such devices at their own convenience.
The present invention also has the ability to “pair” or assign a given battery to a certain class or number. Depending on the implementation this may show up as an icon or a text based identifier, or as number on the configuration device of a transmitter during the pairing process. By assigning different classes to different physical batteries the user can locate different devices individually.
The present invention combines a standard battery, such as the AAA sized battery commonly found in a remote control unit for a video system and object location device such as are sometimes used to control lights or to find keys and other objects in to a single product. This “Find Me Battery” product is then used to power consumer devices and can be used to find them when they are misplaced. In addition the present invention provides a mechanism by which such Find Me Batteries can be grouped so that different Find Me Batteries are assigned to different classes. This allows a user of the system to find objects (containing said batteries) of only a given class at a time greatly increasing the versatility of the invention.
An alternate method of assigning batteries to classes is to assign each battery a unique identification number. Then, when put in the pairing/transmitting device the transmitter learns this battery's number. When it is necessary to find that particular battery the identification number is modulated as part of the “find me” signal. When the battery senses the signal it demodulates it and determines if it was the battery called and if so sounds it's alarm.